


Blindside

by tanktrilby



Category: Gintama
Genre: Jealousy, Joui War, M/M, Multi, sugi is dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 23:34:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5721253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanktrilby/pseuds/tanktrilby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most of all, Takasugi's tired; tired of the Amanto scum that invade ever deeper into his home, and tired of being in love with his two best friends, who are in love with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blindside

Zura clamped a captainly hand on Takasugi’s shoulder and told him to rest. “You did well,” he said, smiling, making sure that it reached his eyes like he was worried Takasugi would think he wasn’t sincere. What Takasugi thought was that Zura had grown into one hell of a liar but still. It sounded nice, like the kind of thing Shouyou would have said. 

He shrugged Zura's hand off. “Yeah yeah yeah,” he said, ducking around behind Zura and towards the shuffle of the men returned from battle. Ghost-white flashed across the corner of his eye and his feet changed direction without thought, magnetic forces at work. Opposites and equals and all that. 

Instead he looked out for his troops. The Kiheitai were a scarred collection of barely-samurai who all had the same starved expression, the same cold glint in their eyes like a pack of lean savage wolves hidden among men. Takasugi gave them a smirk when they met his eyes and they nodded, all this misplaced respect where just weeks ago, they’d been openly derisive of their young green commander. He showed them beyond reasonable doubt that experience didn’t count for shit; Takasugi and the war got on with each other like a house on fire.

Somebody pushed a roll of paper into his hands and he should have looked at it, but he was fading and his knees creaked with the weight of his exhaustion. Takasugi clenched the papers in his hand and staggered into his tent, and collapsed. The air stung of steel and blood and there were patterns of bright light on the back of his eyelids, scurrying like ants, and he watched them, thinking in loops and circles about how tired he was.

He fell asleep, got woken up by Zura sneaking out of the tent. Someone had taken his boots off, stolen his maps from his jacket and spread a blanket, haphazardly, over him. He was still tired, still aching. Takasugi went back to sleep.

The next time he woke up Gintoki was pinching his cheek, one finger on his lips, a parody of a kid with a secret. In the filtered moonlight he looked like a faded photograph. He looked unreal, as if Takasugi had looked into a mirror that faded every color to greys and dirty whites.

Takasugi reached for his sword, eyes half-lidded, still drifting in and out. He sat up and cool air swam across his back.

“Get up,” the ghost-reflection muttered. “We’re on lookout duty.”

Snake-like half-thoughts slithered across Takasugi’s mind. His lip curled in a snarl but Gintoki wasn’t paying attention, standing up and scowling at the neatly-folded papers on the floor.

Takasugi inhaled. “Move it, then,” he said, and they went outside.

*

They weren’t always like this. There’d always been this tension between them but it used to be electric and exciting, spurring Takasugi on, making him pick up his bokuto and charge, keep chasing. But in the summer of their fourteenth year Takasugi watched Gintoki clench up his fists and gather up his courage and lean forward to kiss Katsura, and nothing has been the same ever since.

It had been building and building and Takasugi had been too preoccupied to see— to watch it grow, the ill-disguised laughter in Zura's complaints, the light in Gintoki’s eyes. He’d never wondered where the two of them went off to in the chilly evenings when he and Sensei talked into the night, never thought to suspect, and-

 Well, he was an idiot, wasn’t he? Gintoki was always finding excuses to touch Zura, Zura’s hair, Zura’s pretty face, and as for Katsura, Takasugi had known him for so long that the changes should have been as clear as an open-handed slap to the face. It should have been clear when he kept finding them piled together like puppies, Gintoki napping curled up around Zura, Zura with his book resting on Gintoki’s head. After they sparred they always smiled at each other. It added up.

But still, Takasugi didn’t find out about it until the heat-sticky summer afternoon when Shoyou had sent him to get them, and he’d found them kissing near the river where all three of them had learned to swim.

Betrayal stung Takasugi. He felt the cracks and fissures on the life they’d built starting to form, a deep lurch in his stomach when he realized that things had begun to change. _Isn’t this enough,_ he wanted to scream at them. Shake them, beat them up, and knock all of their lives back into orbit. _Why would you want to ruin what we already have why are you so ungrateful why-_

_I saw him first._

The thought floored Takasugi. In front of him, Katsura and Gintoki were oblivious, flushing and looking away from each other. Zura’s shoulders had hiked up shyly high and Gintoki looked a little stunned, a little stupid, endlessly pleased. And Takasugi’s treacherous mind said again, clear as a bell: _I saw him first._

Worst of all -horrible, curling like a fist inside his ribcage- he didn't know who he meant, or who he was supposed to be addressing.  _I saw him first._

The rage flooded out of him and left him hollow. He turned around without saying anything, and walked back home.

*

Takasugi stumbled to the stream at the back of the meadow where they made camp and splashed himself with freezing four a.m. water, making parts of his face and fingertips go numb. It woke him up the rest of the way, though, and he sneezed three times in quick succession and rubbed his frozen nose.

Gintoki snorted. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Some of us were too busy to get a proper night’s rest,” Takasugi said.

“That’s nice, what a nice story, Takasugi-kun,” Gintoki said, ugly with contempt.

Takasugi bared his teeth at him. “Shouldn’t you be out there, covering for Zura’s fuckups?”

A vein ticked in Gintoki’s jaw, and he looked, for a moment, _incandescent_ with rage. He lit up from the inside with it, a splintered-glass glint in his crimson eyes. Takasugi smirked and pushed himself on to his feet. This was more like it. This, he could handle, he’d take gladly.

But then Gintoki flared back down as abruptly as he’d ignited. Takasugi exhaled through his nose in frustration, because Gintoki was looking away with his mouth set in a thin, unyielding line, refusing Takasugi an easy fix. 

They had all this history between them– it was stupid to hope for a clean fight, his fist on Gintoki’s jaw as honest as Takasugi would ever be.

Gintoki bit out a laugh, all jagged edges, sounding as wretched and abandoned as Takasugi felt. "Fuck, Takasugi," he said. “You’re always such good company.”

*

Takasugi didn’t know which one of them he liked more, was the thing. 

They joined the war when they were fifteen, and it felt like a bridge across the rift that had grown at a slow burn all throughout the past year. United again, Takasugi felt that old thrum of excitement and visceral joy and reveled in it as they surged forward, Gintoki-and-Katsura-and-Takasugi again, a single unit, infallible.

“Oi oi,” Gintoki said from beside him, the sun in his hair, warm on the back of Takasugi’s neck. “What are you smiling so hard for? Makes you look like an idiot.”

Zura shook his head. “Boys are always excited to be on field trips, right Takasugi? Did you make sure to pack enough snacks? If you run out I’ll give you some of mine.”

“Shut up, morons,” Takasugi said, making them shut up for all of half a second before Gintoki said,

“So? Did you get any sleep last night or were you too excited?”

They had their own fighting styles but they looked out for each other. Gintoki’s was pure instinct and motion, and Katsura and Takasugi adapted quickly, cataloguing the differences between dojo fighting and street fighting and real, proper war. When the troops made camp they slept three to a tent, and while their classmates jan-ken’d for partners, Takasugi, Gintoki and Katsura naturally gravitated towards each other.

It was going well. It was going fine until one night, Takasugi woke up without the usual elbow in his face, his head clearer than ever.

He could see a skinny slash of the fields dipped in darkness from where the tent flap was open. Above them there was a skyful of stars, and Takasugi tried to make out the constellations Sensei had taught them, promising they'd guide his little samurai home.

He was about to give up and shut his eyes resolutely when he heard a scuffle, then whispered voices.

Takasugi sat up straight, spine tense. He had his katana in his hand and his feet out of the opening in two seconds, foregoing his shoes in favor of stealth. Half-formed theories about how the enemy could have infiltrated the camp and wondered semi-hysterically _where the fuck_ his faithful comrades were supposed to be, anyway, when the shadows coalesced into the unmistakable shapes of Gintoki and Zura.

Immediately he thought they were fighting, but that was just Takasugi’s war-fucked brain talking, because Gintoki and Zura never fought. Gintoki had his hands buried in the sweep of Zura’s hair and as Takasugi watched, he kissed Zura messy and deep.

Takasugi froze. Zura kissed Gintoki back like he was starved for it, hands clutching desperately at Gintoki’s back.

And this time, the spark of betrayal brought a deep sadness with it, certain and unshakable. It’s not that he didn’t have a chance, with Gintoki or with Zura- it’s just that they found each other first, and had already begun to build something that would last years, decades - _lifetimes_ \- by the time Takasugi understood that he was in love with both of his best friends.

Something cold clutched at his chest, accompanied by that special wrenching feeling he got when Gintoki smirked at him on the battlefield, or Zura bumped shoulders with him without speaking a word.

He curled his shoulders in, stricken. He hid his gaze in his own hands, white-knuckled around the scabbard of his sword, and thought that someday he would get over this, someday it wouldn’t matter so much that this remarkably devastating thing had once happened to him.

It was the first worst day of his life. The rest followed one after the other.

*

Dawn was nowhere in sight when Takasugi and Gintoki took their posts from the guys on the night shift. Originally, this camp had been meant to be out of harm’s way, an opportunity for uninterrupted sleep, but yesterday’s ambush had left the safety of the area in question. Their claws had to be long for the Amanto to have reached this far, and Takasugi was going to rip them out, grind them bloody and pulverized with his bare hands if he had to.

“Your face is a delight to gaze upon, Takasugi, we’ll be able to gross the Amanto out and take-”

Gintoki cut himself off. Takasugi said, through gritted teeth, “Don’t force yourself to be so polite, Gintoki, go ahead and say whatever worthless thing you were going to spew out of the cesspit you call a mouth.”

“God, you’re so obnoxious,” Gintoki said with a perfectly straight face, and Takasugi barked out a laugh.

“ _I’m_ obnoxious? You’ve been trying to pick a fight since I fucking woke up, not to mention all the-”

“Zura wants us to get along,” said Gintoki.

“That’s your problem, not mine.”

He’d hesitated, though, so now Gintoki was looking at him with that expression that might as well be carved into his ugly face- disgust, frustration, and a hint of despair.

“It’s what Zura wants.”

“I know, because you already said that five seconds ago,” Takasugi snapped.

“It’s not that and you know it isn’t,” Gintoki said, hands clawing at air. Takasugi thought that thousands of Amanto could attack right now and neither of them would turn a hair, too caught up in this, in each other.

Takasugi narrowed his eyes. “What are you saying. Spit it out, Shiroyasha.”

“You’re so _stupid,”_ said Gintoki, and lurched forward and kissed him.

Tension drew wire-thin all across Takasugi’s body and he could feel himself instinctively back away, _nonono,_ but Gintoki made a low sound and followed, his lips brushing Takasugi’s at a very specific angle, warmth and an electric jolt in all the places they touched.

And then Takasugi thought: _this is it. This is what’s gonna kill me,_ and that was what finally made him jerk away, out of Gintoki’s reach.

“What the _fuck-”_

“You _asshole,”_ Gintoki half-shouted, looking so overwrought it snapped Takasugi’s jaw shut in surprise. “All that and you _still_ don’t fucking get it? Zura _loves_  you, you braindead pining loser, he’s all shoujo manga sparkles and dokis for you, I don’t _understand_ how stupid you have to be not to notice!”

Takasugi dragged in a breath into his lungs. He said, mechanically,

“Zura likes you. You two are in love.”

Gintoki looked tired and destroyed. “The two of you saw each other first, you’re blind if you can’t see the hold you have over him, his first fucking love. Me, I never stood a chance by the time I came along.” His eyes cracked open and Takasugi was arrested, jarred and half-manic, when Gintoki added, “with either of you.”

Takasugi moved without thinking. None of it added up or seemed real, but he wanted to catch Gintoki’s attention, distract him from the soft sad shape of his mouth. The skin of Gintoki’s wrist was hot and smooth, and Gintoki made a half-gasp, shocked, mouth open as he stared at Takasugi.

Stunned, not able to speak, Takasugi ran his fingers up. The sleeve of Gintoki’s kimono scrunched up revealing the inside of his forearm, strong and pale and intimate. He glanced up from his hand, up to Gintoki’s face, and Gintoki looked like he was waiting for Takasugi to stick a knife in his ribs and gouge out his heart.  

Takasugi breathed Gintoki’s name, and Gintoki’s eyes widened in revelation.

Cautious and scared, he repeated the message, his fingers still light and shaking on Gintoki’s arm. “ _Gintoki._ I, I’m the same. You could have told me and we’d have saved so much of _time,_ and–” He tries to take a breath to fade the sparks in his vision.

"I saw  _you_ first, too."

It’s half of a year’s worth of fantasies when he got kissed again, Gintoki's eyes wide and desperate before he shuts them, his tongue licking into his mouth this time. He made a noise and Gintoki groaned low, low in his throat and Takasugi wasn’t processing anything properly, hazy, dazzled.

Gintoki moved his hot mouth to his shoulder and grazed it with his teeth and Takasugi made a dazed sound of encouragement. He couldn’t go too long without being kissed, so he pulled Gintoki’s willing head back up and half-climbed into his lap, and Gintoki laughed, sounding hoarse and fucked up and as exhilarated as Takasugi felt, live wires at his core.

“You’re so obnoxious,” he said. His eyes shone.

*

There was one more shift left before the whole camp was supposed to rise. Takasugi kept his hands in his pockets and ignored all the looks Gintoki gave him that scorched across his skin, determined to do his job after ripping himself away from Gintoki's lap, unfusing their bruised mouths. 

They stumbled to the very back of the field after their shift was over. Gintoki was heavy and warm, complaining he couldn’t walk, shooting Takasugi more of those glances that made his skin itch under his clothes.

Outside Gintoki and Zura’s tent, Takasugi halted. “If there’s no space,” he said, and Gintoki bit his lip and reached out.

“Zura still snores like a teakettle, though,” was all he said. Hopeful.

Takasugi followed him inside.

Zura’s hair was ink-black against the stark white of the pillows, his mouth slightly open as he slept. Takasugi took in a quick gasp of breath that made Gintoki chuckle. With that synchronization they’d always had, they began to settle on either side of Katsura, Gintoki careless and noisy on his left side, Takasugi’s hands shaking on his right.

“Gin-toki?”

Takasugi froze.

Gintoki hummed. “The one and only.”

Zura smiled. His eyes were still closed, painted with starlight. “Smug bastard.”

Takasugi stayed very still, his heart hammering in his ears. He flinched when Zura’s eyelashes began to flutter drowsily, hazel eyes picking him out in the darkness.

“And Takasugi,” Zura said, soft wonder in his voice.

“Yup,” Gintoki said. He sounded like he might burst with sheer triumph and pride.

“Hello, Takasugi,” Zura said, and his hand reached out to touch Takasugi’s face. Hazy warmth spiraled in Takasugi’s stomach when they made contact, his eyes stuck on the sleep-softness of Katsura’s mouth, the sweep of his lashes on his cheek. “Or rather, welcome back, Takasugi.”

Takasugi heaved out an exhale. He leaned down to pepper Zura’s lips with kisses, gentle, affectionate, tracing the curve of Zura’s smile. Zura stroked the jut of his cheekbones and kissed back with quiet close-eyed intensity.

“Sorry for taking so long,” he said, lying down with Zura’s arms wrapped around him, and flipped Gintoki off when he snickered. 

**Author's Note:**

> goddamn right i'm gonna recycle this plot until everyone's sick of it. also, behold! it's the fic I've been threatening to write ever since I joined this fandom.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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